Reading History in Caxton's Polychronicon

John Bale's valorization of print is well-remarked, evident in his own additions to the Laboryouse Journey and echoed by other fervent champions of the Reformation such as John Foxe. Yet in his Catalogus (1557), Bale includes a brief, curious entry on William Caxton, striking in both its ambivalences and silences around the man who inaugurated English print.¹ Here, Caxton emerges not as a printer but as an historian, remembered primarily for his capacious and accretive historiographical work:

William Caxton, who was by no means a stupid or lazy man, but rather exceedingly anxious to spread the reputation of his people, spent much effort in seeking out many achievements accomplished by other peoples in order to achieve this. He lived in the meantime for 30 years in Flanders, with Lady Margaret, the duchess of Burgundy and sister of King Edward. Later he acknowledges that he was at first inspired by the initial attempts of a certain teacher at the shrine of St. Alban, whose endeavors had not yet been concluded, who was overtaken by death and left his work incomplete on some sheets of paper and on some small pages. Caxton not only gathered together the leaves of paper and made one collection of them but also added many works from Titus Livius, St. Augustine, Gildas, Bede, Isidore, Cassiodorus, Geoffrey of Monmouth, William of Malmesbury, Martin Carsulanus, Theobald the Carthusian and other good authors, and attached to the same work calculations of dates. He begins with the Giants, who were, so he thinks, the first inhabitants of this land, and he finishes in the 23rd year of Edward IV, which is the year 1483 A.D., and called it his own work. [Bale then produces a list of historiographical writing, including Trevisa's Appendices, Mirror of the World, Description of Britain, the Life of Edward Confessor, and the History of Arthur] and he published yet more books in English. The appendices continue from the year 1397, in which he inserts the additions of John Trevisa into his Polychronicon, right up to the year 1460. He also translated from the French and Latin languages into English: [Second list: Book of Chivalry, Game and Play of Chess, History of Troy, Bonaventure's Life of Christ, History of the Lombards, Capgrave's catalogue, among others.] He collected and printed all the minor works of Geoffrey Chaucer, and did many other things. He achieved fame in the aforementioned year, under King Edward. John Major [Mair] writes that he translated his Chronicle into Latin, in the fourth book on the Deeds of the Scots, and took the greater part of his history from it.

(Guilhelmus Caxton, vir non omnino stupidus, aut ignauia torpens, sed propagandae suae gentis memoriae studiosus admodum, multa aliarum gentium monumenta ad id peragendum non paruo quaesiuit labore. Habitauit interim in Flandria 30 annis, cum domina Margareta, Burgundiae ducissa, regis Edvuardi sorore. Cuiusdam didascali ad Albani fanum conatibus postea, obortis quidem, sed nondum finitis, se ad hec instimulatum esse primo, fatetur: qui morte preventus, in schedis ac pagellis aliquot, imperfectum reliquerat opus. Hoc non solum Caxtonus collectis foliis coaceruauit, sed etiam ex Tito Livio, D. Augustino, Gilda, Beda, Isidoro, Cassiodoro, Galfrido Monemutensi, Guilhelmo Malmesburiensi, Martino Carsulano, Theobaldo Carthusiano, & aliis authoribus bonis, addidit multa, temporum supputationibus eidem operi iunctis. Incipit a Gigantibus, primis, ut ille putat, huius terrae inhabitatoribus: ac desinit in 23 anno Edvuardi quarti, qui est annus a Christi nativitate 1483, vocauitque suum opus: [Bale's historiographical list] Et alios adhuc libros Brytannice edidit. Appendices continuantur ab anno Domini 1397, in quo Ioannis Trevisae additiones in Polychronicon excipit, usque ad annum eius 1460. Transtulit etiam a Gallica & Latino linguis in Anglicum sermonem: [Second list] Collegit atque impressit omnia Galfridi Chauceri opuscula, & alia multa fecit. Claruit anno superius memorato, sub Edvuardo rege. Huius Chronicon in Latinum sermonem vertisse se scribit Joannes Maior, in quarto lib, de gestis Scotorum, ac maiorem historiae suae partem ex eo sustulisse. Collegit atque impressit omnia Galfridi Chauceri opuscula, & alia multa fecit. Claruit anno superius memorato, sub Edvuardo rege. Huius Chronicon in Latinum sermonem vertisse se scribit Joannes Maior, in quarto lib. de gestis Scotorum...